Circling Greenland fraught with perils

2 men near end of icy adventure

May 08, 2001|By Lew Freedman, Tribune outdoors reporter.

The 100 m.p.h. winds vibrating the tent for five days were so loud the two men lying next to one another couldn't converse. They couldn't stand. They couldn't step outside. They feared being blown away.

That was one time Lonnie Dupree thought Greenland might be too much for him. That was one time he wondered why he wasn't at home in Grand Marais, Minn., with his wife, Kelly, or son Jacob. But when the wind subsided without destroying Dupree and Australian partner John Hoelscher, they went on. They went on kayaking. They went on skiing and dog mushing. Just as they have every other time a howling wind threatened to level them or daunting waves threatened to swamp them.

Their perseverance has overcome doubts. Their will has overcome dangers. And now they are working through the final 950-mile segment of a 6,000-mile circumnavigation of the world's largest island, a trip conceived in 1995 and begun in 1997. They hope to complete their round-the-nation tour by Sept. 1, when the short northern summer quickly starts fading.

It is tempting to suggest that every square inch of the earth has been explored, that every great obstacle has been overcome, that every great adventure has been experienced. But these guys somehow found something new to do.

"There are less and less things to do as far as geographical firsts," Dupree said in an hour-long telephone interview from Greenland. "I guess I feel fortunate."

Qaanaaq (pronounced Kan-ak), a community of 500, was the jumping off point in mid-April for the current, 340-mile sled-dog leg. Accompanied by seven Inuit hunters, 108 dogs and eight sleds for 190 miles, Dupree and Hoelscher reached Savissivik within two weeks. They hope to complete the last land travel by themselves in mid-May, then take a break in Minnesota before making the last push by kayak starting July 7.

Greenland, which is about three times the size of Texas, with only about 56,000 people, is located northeast of Canada between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. About 84 percent of its mass is covered with ice. It took three days for Dupree just to reach Qaanaaq. He drove from Grand Marais to Minneapolis, then flew through Chicago and Copenhagen by jet, and then took a helicopter.

This is not the way the average tourist spends a vacation. Dupree, 40, dreamed up this journey six years ago, but he never believed it would be interrupted so often or take so long. Friend Mark Nordman, another mushing aficionado from Grand Marais, admires Dupree's stick-to-it-iveness.

Dupree has relatives who consider him crazy, and he and Hoelscher, 38, whom he barely knew when they started, have cheated death several times. Yet there also have been wondrous times, drinking in the beauty of a remote land, returning to the United States and seeing the glow in children's eyes during lectures and slide shows, traveling where no person has walked before and admiring the ways of the Inuit people.

"They find it interesting a white person can even drive a dog team," Dupree said, laughing.

Dupree and Hoelscher actually ski alongside the sledges most of the time while the dogs, weighing between 60 and 80 pounds, haul supplies. The locally bred dogs resemble a cross between Siberian huskies and wolves, Dupree said. The natives use these hardy dogs to hunt polar bears, and a couple of times the dogs' curiosity created risky encounters.

On the trail in 1998, Dupree skied over a fresh polar bear track.

"I was just kind of daydreaming, looking down," he said.

The alert dogs caught the scent of a gigantic polar bear and took off. Dupree dove onto the sled and hung on as it bounced along. Luckily for everyone, the dogs never caught the bear. In 2000, the dogs surprised a sleeping polar bear. It ran off.

There have been many close calls in the kayaks, when high winds materialized suddenly, creating churning chop. Once, Dupree and Hoelscher paddled for 17 straight hours because they couldn't find a place to pitch a tent safely.

"It was almost an out-of-body experience, we were so tired," Dupree said.

Still, that was better than capsizing into frigid water, or paddling the 17-foot kayak in 8-foot seas.

"A lot of times, we didn't think we would make it," Dupree said.

The incredible energy outputs were draining and Dupree and Hoelscher have often fueled themselves with 5,000 calories in a day. Typical fare includes dried seal meat, rice, noodles and potatoes. Dupree's favorite snack food is Bitter Sport, a dense German candy bar that includes chocolate, almonds and raisins. The explorers also carry packages of Skibskiks, a Danish-made cracker.